


Fight

by Vanguard



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, No Apotheosis AU, nobody dies au, so if you want a happy ending start there, the AUs only apply to chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-05 09:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17322545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanguard/pseuds/Vanguard
Summary: Character study of Alice and her and Bill's relationship leading up to the Apotheosis. Now with Chapter 2, an AU where the Apotheosis never happens.





	1. Chapter 1

Alice tucked her knees into her chest and tried to keep her breath at a steady pace as she listened to her parents fight down in the living room. It’s not like she was trying to listen, really she wasn’t, their voices… carried.

“Karen, come on, honey, we can try to work this out! My friend at the office, Charlotte, she’s been going with her husband and she says it’s worth trying!”

“You know what we are, Bill? We are a shattered mirror. You can try as hard as you want to glue and tape all the pieces together, but at the end of the day, the mirror is still broken. There are still cracks and pieces that fall out and go missing and your reflection in it is never the same. That’s what we are. You are never going to fix us.”

“Sweetheart, please, I am willing to put in as much work as I need, just please-”

“You don’t get it, Bill! I. Don’t. Love. You. I just don’t. I haven’t for a very long time.”

There was a deafening pause, one that seemed to have a fist around Alice’s heart.

“What about Alice?” Her heart stopped. “This, this would be so hard on her.”

“She’s fourteen, almost fifteen, Bill, she’s not some little kid anymore. Maybe it’ll hurt, but she’ll move on. And you’ll get to visit.”

“... What do you mean? I want custody.”

“Bill, I thought you would’ve guessed this by now. She’s not your daughter. Remember that week you went and visited your family? I had a guy from work over.”

Alice covered her mouth, trying to conceal her sobs as she buried her face further into her knees. It felt like she couldn’t breathe, like her chest was caving in on itself.

“Of course I know you didn’t have her with me.” He sounded so defeated, and Alice felt her heart ache for her dad. “I’m not the smartest man in the world, but damn it, I’m not an idiot. But I didn’t care because y’know what? I was there. I was there when you gave birth to her. I held her in my hands in that hospital room and nothing else mattered. I was there when she started to crawl, and walk, and talk. I was there to hold her when she came out to us, telling her it was okay, that we still loved her. I may not have given her life but I’ve damn well helped her through it, and I want custody!”

“We’ll see about that.”

She heard the front door slam and suddenly she felt very, very alone.

* * *

 Her parents thought she’d been asleep that night, never realizing that she knew what they meant when they were going out to “dinner.”

She knew the whole time that they were meeting with divorce lawyers. Which is why she didn’t understand why she started sobbing when they sat her down and told her that they were getting a divorce.

And then they said that she was going to be living with her mother in Clivesdale.

They would be moving by the end of the month.

It felt like time stopped and all the breath had been removed from her lungs.

No.

No, no, no, she was supposed to stay with her dad. That’s what he said. He said he would fight for her.

She felt empty as she walked up to her room, and shut the door lightly behind her.

“Thank you for letting me get custody, Bill.”

“I guess you were right… she didn’t seem to care that she was going to be with you.”

Alice felt her hands curl into fists and pound against the wall, saw them swipe off all the papers on her desk. Her eyes came to rest on a photo of her and her dad.

She picked it up, her arm raising to throw it at the wall, and… she couldn’t let go. Her legs collapsed underneath her, the picture frame still gripped tightly in her hand.

She clutched it to her chest as she sobbed, until she eventually fell asleep.

* * *

 For the first year or so after the divorce, she refused to see her father, refused to even go to Hatchetfield because she didn’t want to run the risk of him “happening” to show up wherever she and her mom would go.

She knew it was cruel to do that to her father, especially since she knew about her mom’s affair.

But he said he was going to fight for her, and then he didn’t. He rolled over and let her mother win, just like he always did.

So fuck him.

Fuck him for letting her have whatever she wanted. Fuck him for not caring enough about her when she needed him most.

Fuck him.

Fuck him.

Fuck. Him.

* * *

 She started seeing him upon her mother’s insistence.

“Just because things ended between your father and me doesn’t mean they have to end between the two of you. He misses you.”

Her dad picked her up at the bus station and wrapped her in the biggest hug. She brought her arms up to return the hug awkwardly.

(She hated to admit how great it felt for him to hug her again).

He grabbed her luggage from her and immediately started chattering away about how they were going out to Red Lobster to celebrate coming back home.

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t her favorite restaurant anymore.

* * *

She climbed out the window that night on the trellis, knowing her dad wouldn’t come in and check on her.

She wandered around town for hours, not caring how late it was. It was fucking Hatchetfield, the capital of Nowhere, USA. What was the worst that could happen?

Somehow, she ended up at Hatchetfield High, thinking of what could’ve been.

“What are you doing here?”

She turned, seeing some girl in a flannel and beanie leaning against the wall.

“Could ask you the same question.”

“Asked you first.”

“Wandering. Needed to clear my head. You?”

The girl chuckled. “Needed to smoke.” She produces a blunt from her pocket and offered it out to Alice.

She crinkled her nose. “No thanks.”

The girl shrugged at lit the joint, taking a long drag. “I’m Deb.”

“Alice.”

* * *

They made out in Deb’s car until a policeman rolled up and rapped his knuckles on the glass and told them to leave before he arrested them.

Deb dropped her off at her house and before Alice could ask for her number, she’d driven away. It wasn’t until she’d climbed back up the trellis and into her bedroom when she noticed there was a piece of paper in her back pocket.

_Call me,_

_555-1234_

She scoffed at the girl’s methods before getting out her phone and texting her.

_Asshole_

Three dots appeared.

She smiled.

* * *

She texted Deb the rest of the week whenever her father wasn’t paying attention, which was fairly often if she was being honest.

She was just… everything her father wasn’t.

She continued going back to Hatchetfield for a week once a month, and sneaking out and meeting Deb at night until her dad caught her one night when he went outside to grab something from his car.

“Alice? What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get back inside, now.”

Her dad wasn’t a very intimidating man, but she couldn’t help but wring her hands together and duck her head in shame as she made her way back through the front door.

She tried to get to her room before he got inside, but he cut her off before she could and told her to sit.

“Alice, tell me what the hell you were doing sneaking out at almost midnight.”

Her eyes were burning holes into the carpet.

“Alice, I can’t just not do anything about this."

She felt her head snap upwards. “Oh really? Just like you couldn’t do anything about-”

She cut herself off from saying “getting me.”

Bill’s shoulders slumped and sat in the chair opposite her. “Sweetie, I… I really tried. With your mom. I did and it just… didn’t work out. It happens. But it doesn’t mean I love you any less. You’re still my little girl.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, sending her to bed.

For real this time.

She went to the bathroom first and looked in the mirror.

It was broken.

* * *

She kept visiting on the designated weeks, and even eventually introduced him to Deb. She could tell immediately that he didn’t like her, which was all the better to her.

Things got better.

Despite their disagreements about Deb, they were okay. It wasn’t how it was before the divorce, not by a long shot, but it was progress. He was trying to get them tickets to see Mamma Mia, even one for Deb.

He still saw her as a kid. She could tell. But he was trying.

And she was willing to try, too.

* * *

 If she was being entirely honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she liked Deb as a girlfriend. Not that she wasn’t a good one, quite the opposite. But Deb always just felt more like a good friend that she would occasionally make out with than a girlfriend.

But then her dad would go on about how she wasn’t good for her, try to convince her to go out with someone else. And her instincts would kick in and she defended Deb.

Afterwards when she would talk to Deb, she’d feel horrible. She didn’t want to string her along, but there was so much uncertainty of where the line of wanting to get back at her father ended, and where true feelings began, if there even was a line.

All she knew was that she liked Deb, she really did. She liked how she never pushed Alice more than she was ready to handle. She liked the way she defended her against her stoner friends. She liked the way she would just hold her sometimes if she had a rough day and run fingers through her hair.

She liked Deb. It’s why she always defended her to her father.

It’s also why she got off the bus that Sunday going back to Clivesdale. Because as much as this was another one of her father’s ways of treating her like a child that couldn’t make her own choices, he was right. Deb wasn’t right for her.

For once, her dad was right.

* * *

 “Alice? Babe? Where are you? Come on out. I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise.

She cowered in the corner of the Hatchetfield High choir room, knees tucked into her chest as she listened to Deb and Grace Chastity’s (fucking nerdy prude) echoing footsteps.

She stared at her phone screen. It had been ten minutes since she’d called her dad. It was only a matter of time before-

Knock.

Knock.

Knock. 

“Alice?”

* * *

She doesn’t remember dying. She remembers Deb breaking into the room, humming a tune as she watched Alice try to reach a window.

And then… it felt like she was an outsider looking in, like she was in a virtual reality simulation. She was seeing everything but she didn’t have control.

She felt herself walking towards voices.

She tried to call out. “Dad, Uncle Paul run!”

But nothing came out.

* * *

This _thing_ started its musical number. Complete with all the terrible emotions and memories she’d been carrying over the last two years.

“Dad, it’s not true, not anymore. I love you, Dad, please.”

Nothing.

Paul took away the shotgun from her dad and she felt herself reaching down to pick it up.

She brought it up.

Aimed.

She pulled the trigger.

* * *

They split up when the military chased them away. Her body stopped moving as she pushed hard at the invader in her head. She pushed harder and harder feeling her body convulse as the thing tried to fight back.

The next thing she knew, she was sobbing, kneeling in the middle of the hallway.

She didn’t care that she felt like a hot poker was being pushed through her skull as the thing tried to regain control.

Her hands shook as she brought the shotgun barrel to the underside of her jaw.

She felt the thing scratching at her consciousness, trying to stop her from pulling the trigger.

“You killed my dad. You made him think I didn’t love him in the last moments before he died. Fuck. You.”

She pulled the trigger.


	2. It Never Happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of if the Apotheosis hadn't happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this AU, if you need a refresher, you can pretty much read the beginning of the last chapter up until Alice decides Bill was correct about Deb not being right for her. This is picks up from where that section leaves off for the most part, so as long as you've got everything up to there, you'll be good. Besides that, I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please comment and kudos because I am desperate for validation that I'm doing something right lmao (I'm not kidding). Oh, and quick side note, I pretty much wrote this in like one sitting at midnight and I didn't bother to proofread, so I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors.

Alice stared at her phone in contemplation. Her fingers ran over the little chip in the side of her case from when it had fallen out of her pocket (why don't they just make reasonably sized pockets for women?) climbing down the trellis to meet Deb. 

And that's when she knew what she had to do. At the next stop, she climbed off the bus and made her way back towards downtown.

She was halfway to Hatchetfield High when she realized she was being followed. It hadn't been much more than an uneasy feeling until she'd turned down a quieter street, and heard footsteps trailing behind her that never wavered. Discreetly, she opened her phone's camera and put it in selfie mode to see two guys behind her, following her down every sidewalk she went down. 

Her grip on her phone tightened as she evaluated where she was in relation to Hatchetfield High before she took off in a sprint towards the school, taking a shortcut Uncle Paul taught her and climbing in through the window of the teacher's lounge.

She hid out in the choir room, fingers trembling, barely able to scroll through her contacts and find her dad's name. 

The line rang.

"Alice? Honey, are you okay?"

"I got off the bus to go talk to Deb and I realized I was being followed and I ran into Hatchetfield High School and now I'm hiding in the choir room. Dad, please, come help."

"Alice, baby, I'm going to need you to calm down, okay? You are going to be okay. Paul and I are getting off work now and we're going to come get you, alright? Stay where you are. I'm coming to get you. Everything will be okay, I promise."

Before she could say anything else, the call was ended. She took shuddering breaths, not even fully realizing she had been crying. 

He was coming.

Her dad was coming.

He would save her.

He promised.

* * *

"Where are you?"

Alice heard the footsteps of her pursuers echoing in the hallway. She tucked her knees further into her chest. 

"Oh, come on! We're not g- what was that?"

There was a sudden rush of noise and thuds outside the door. She burrowed herself into a corner on the wall the door was on.

The door opened slowly. She had a chair in front of herself, ready to throw it at any attackers and bolt if needed. A figure stepped into view...

"Alice? Honey? Oh, thank God you're okay!"

She released a breath she didn't even know she had been holding and rushed to her father and hugged him tightly. Last time she had held him so tightly was when she had come out to him and her mom. He held her and told her everything would be alright after her mom had walked out of the house without saying a word.

"How did you get rid of them?"

Bill rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I, uh, was hopping through the lounge window and accidentally kicked one guy in the head. The other guy just bolted after he saw his friend run out of the school with a bloody nose with Paul and me behind him."

Despite the awful situation, she couldn't help but laugh and bury her face in her father's chest. 

She could feel the material of the shirt getting wet under her tears, and there would probably be makeup stains on there, too. But right now, that was the least important thing in the world.

He promised.

He came.

* * *

 

A month later, like clockwork, Alice returned. There was something different about it this time. Something better. 

"You know, you used to think your Uncle Paul was the coolest person on the planet," Bill began at breakfast.

She chuckled. "Yeah, I remember. On Fridays and weekends, he would let me stay up a little later and watch  _The Twilight Zone_ with him. And when he would drive me to school, he'd always have a cookie for me as a mini-breakfast."

"No wonder we started getting complaints that you were hyper at the beginning of class and crashing by the end."

"Hey, as a seven year old, it was the best thing ever."

"Yeah, well, now your Uncle Paul has a crush on a barista at Beanie's and can't work up the nerve to ask her out. He's been going in there every day. I don't even know if he's told her his name yet."

"What else do you expect from a guy who doesn't like musicals?" 

"Speaking of musicals, I was going to try to get tickets to Mamma Mia when it comes back to the theatre since the show last month got cancelled because of the bad weather." He paused. "Do you think Deb would want to come?"

Alice's expression turned wistful. "Yeah, uh, Deb and I broke up. I can ask, we're still friends, but we're not an item anymore, Dad."

"Wait, really? I know I didn't always say nice things, but she made you happy. Alice, if you two broke up because of me or anything I've said, I promise I can move past everything. Honey, I just want to see you happy."

Her eyes began to tear up and he grabbed her hand. "Dad, when we talked last month before... you know. I realized you were right. Dad, Deb is a really great person and friend. She never pushed me to do anything I didn't want to do. You were right, she is a stoner, but-" she gave him a glare before he could cut in "- she never hesitated to blow off her friends if they tried to convince me. If I ever had a bad day, she would just be there. No questions asked. She was such a good friend and person, Dad. But at the end of the day... she just wasn't the right fit for me."

His grip on her hand tightened. "Hon, I'm sorry I never gave her a chance. Even if you ended up not working out in that way. I just, I saw you too much as my little girl still. The girl who came out to us. The girl who had to deal with her parents getting a divorce. I never realized how much you had really grown since then. And I should've given you some room to breathe."

"Dad, it's okay. I promise. But maybe now can we try actually getting to know her?"

He smiled. "I would like that. Invite her to Mamma Mia. We can go to dinner first, anywhere you want."

"Thanks, Dad. I love you."

She rose from her chair and put her plate in the sink. As she passed by her dad, still sitting at the table and reading a newspaper, she leaned down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. His smile widened into a grin and he promised her he would start looking for tickets as soon as he was done reading.

She went up to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Last time she'd come back home, it was broken.

Her dad had the mirror replaced.

* * *

By the end of the month, Alice had turned eighteen and was moving into her father's house. Despite any of her mother's protests, the court upheld that as a legal adult, Alice could make her own choices, and any pre-decided custody basically dissolved on her eighteenth birthday.

To her surprise, in the few short weeks between her visit and her birthday, she discovered that Deb and her dad had begun to interact more since the Mamma Mia show, even cracking jokes and having witty banter as they helped her with her belongings.

She finished out the school year, somehow managing to be towards the upper end of the class despite the school change and enrolled in a university the next state over. Close enough that she could still stay at home and just drive to school, but just far away enough that it gave her some new perspective on the world outside of Clivesdale and Hatchetfield. 

Somehow, she managed to get involved in the university's performing troupe, getting roles in their plays and musicals. 

(Uncle Paul conveniently had plans with the cute Beanie's barista, Emma, every time she happened to be in a musical).

Life went on. It had its downfalls and its rises. It was never perfect; she'd be more concerned if it were perfect.

She looked over at her dad who was sitting next to her on the couch, engrossed in the movie they were watching. Her eyes shifted to Deb, passed out in the chair. 

No, life wasn't perfect. Far from it. But sometimes it doesn't have to be. There was always a way to make it better. There was always a way to move on and begin again, no matter the challenges.

A broken mirror could always be replaced.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I may go back and revise and add to this? I didn't want to make it some long extensive thing because, well, I didn't really see much point in it. I didn't want to rehash everything from the beginning, and I didn't see much point in going into long drawn out details of the recovering relationship especially since a lot of that groundwork was laid in the last chapter. But if there are any suggestions of things you maybe would like to see added or elaborated on, feel free to leave a comment or message me on Tumblr, whichever works for you :)
> 
> Tumblr: insertsexualitypun

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about maybe making a version where Alice and Bill get a happier ending. Obv it'd be completely AU then, but sometimes that's what ya gotta do if you want the happy ending. I also considered making a version of this that shows Bill's side of the story. Let me know what you think in the comments. Also Mariah if you see this for whatever reason, hello.


End file.
